


Always

by livlavidaloca



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A lof of What If, All character deaths are canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Feels, Fix-It of Sorts, How Do I Tag, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I also cried while writing it, Severus & Marauders friendship, Surprisingly Good Friend Severus, We're all fine, What if they'd been friends all along, but not really, i'm FINE, it's fine, protective severus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 19:35:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20917433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livlavidaloca/pseuds/livlavidaloca
Summary: My Dearest Sev,If you’re reading this. I’ve not made it. I know you’re surprised to hear from me, after all this time. But there are some things that I need to tell you before. Well. Before.It had never been just about Lily.





	Always

**Author's Note:**

> This was not intended as an explanation for the character or a justification for his bullying. It was a thought I had one day, a Fix-It of sorts if you will.
> 
> This is my first fic, please be gentle. But I hope you enjoy.

Everyone would remember the night as the night the Dark Lord was defeated. The first time. But Severus would always remember it as the night he read her letter. The night he held her body. His body. The baby’s. The tiny fingers, warm around his own, bigger one, as he held baby Harry close and held onto his tears with everything he had. He’d just gotten the baby to quiet—he would not make Harry cry again with his own upset.

Taking a deep breath, he waited, looking down at the green eyes slowly starting to shut as the baby was lulled to sleep, waited until he heard it. The rumble of the engine. He glanced up in time to see the motorcycle—and the giant man on top of it.

“Hagrid?” He said into the dark as the motorcycle landed. He finished pulling himself together, pulling the finger away from the baby to pull his hood lower over his face as the headlights briefly illuminated him. “Where’s Sirius?”

“Gone,” Hagrid whispered, and then let out a short sob. “Gave me ‘is motorcycle before ‘e left, said ‘e won’t be needing it anymore.”

“Shh,” Severus scolded. “You need to be quiet. You might wake the neighbors, much less this one. He’s sleeping, finally.” He didn’t think over what might have happened to Sirius—he could think about it when he got home, once Harry was safe.

“Sorry.” Hagrid dragged one big sleeve over his face, huffing a bit. “Well, I can take him from here.”

Severus gave him one last dubious look, but he knew the baby would be—relatively—safe with Hagrid. Not that he’d ever tell the man that.

“Do you know where Dumbledore is going to place him?” He asked as he handed the baby to Hagrid, making sure he held him right. He would not let Lily and James die just for a giant hand to crush their child’s tiny skull.

“With ‘is family,” was all Hagrid said, before he was bidding Severus a good night and taking off into the sky.

*

_My Dearest Sev,_

_If you’re reading this. I’ve not made it. I know you’re surprised to hear from me, after all this time. But there are some things that I need to tell you before. Well. Before._

*

The house was draped in shadows when Severus finally made it back to the small cottage he’d been calling home. It was so unlike what everyone thought of him—surrounded by plants and blending in with the area around it, all browns and greens and darker earthy colors. To look at it, you would not assume this was the home of Severus Snape, Death Eater, Spy. A man who’s entire world has just been turned upside down—and yet, he’d known this was coming all along, hadn’t he? He’d been warned, months ago. He just hadn’t wanted to believe this day would ever come. He’d thought they’d be safe.

He was wrong.

His feet seem glued to the ground in front of the door, his mind back at another door, not bothering knocking or twisting the nob. It had already been blown off its hinges. And there’d been James. In the front hallway, looking so very un-James-like it wasn’t even funny, it wasn’t a joke, James wake up _wake up James this isn’t funny!_ He wanted to scream at him, that the joke wasn’t funny anymore. James had always loved his jokes. Always. But now he just lay. He just. Lay. Sightless. Everything that had made him James was gone. Now it was just a body.

But then there’d been Lily. And she’d been harder to look upon. So much more peaceful than James, and he knew she’d done something so very Lily—her body was in front of Harry’s crib, as if she’d been protecting him. And he knew this room, even though it looked so much darker and more horrible now, with Harry crying and Lily dead and suddenly in his arms, his arms clutching her and the tears were streaming down his face, and he couldn’t stop _he couldn’t stop_, _Snapes didn’t cry, tears were weaknesses but he couldn’t stop_ and then Harry was in his arms, and he was pulling up his hood and walking outside into the air, away from the bodies that used to be James and Lily. And he was rocking the baby.

And now. Now his feet were glued outside of his own home.

Laughter drifted on the wind. For half a second, he thought it might be them. He could even see him, spinning Lily outside on the day he asked her to marry him. But no he hadn’t been there for that had he? That was just another picture someone had sent him, one that he’d had to hide away with the headmaster.

But then, as he was looking at the veranda, he saw the shape. A small, tiny shape. But he’d recognize it anywhere, the Grim coming toward him. And as it got closer, it became so much less Grim-like and much more Sirius-like, though he didn’t change back. Severus’s shoulders fell, and he heard a strange strangled laughing now—and it was coming from himself.

“Hello, Snuffles,” he whispered, and held out his hand. And Sirius’s nose pressed into it. Severus shook himself out of it. He unlocked the door at last.

“Come on, let’s go get you some clean clothes and some tea.”

Sirius looked haggard. His face drawn and his eyes angry. He clutched the cup of tea that Severus placed in front of him. And he watched Severus with careful eyes as he prepared his own cup. He knew that Severus must have been there. He had the haunted look he’d had all through the war, made worse by it being personal, by knowing the dead as so much more than just another victim.

Severus leaned across the kitchen counter, and for a minute they just looked at each other from across their tea.

And then Sirius told him everything.

“You can stay here,” he said when Sirius had finished.

Sirius shook his head. “I can’t. The entire wizarding community is going to be looking for me. They think”—he let out a hysterical laugh, a hysterical sob, pushing his fringe out of his face—“they think I killed Pettigrew because he was defending James and Lily. They think _I _betrayed them. Fuck Severus, maybe I _have_—”

“Don’t.”

“—I should never have let Pettigrew be the Secret Keeper, it was supposed to be _me_ it was supposed to be _me_—”

“Sirius.” Severus’s voice was calm, and when Sirius looked at him it was the cold, distant man he’d known all his life. The one he’d faced off against in classes and hallways.

“It was supposed to be me,” he sobbed, and then Severus was there, his arms around him, tugging his friend close in this one display of affection. Sirius knew he would not get another after this.

“I can’t stay here,” he whispered into Severus’s shoulder. “I can’t put you in danger too.”

“Yes you can,” Severus said, his voice cold still, even as he tugged his friend in tighter.

Sirius stayed there a moment longer, before he pulled away, made his decision, and decided to stay.

“You’ll have to call me Snuffles,” he warned, as if Severus hadn’t been doing that for the last half a dozen years. Severus just rolled his eyes.

“I’ll have to get you a collar,” he says instead, as his friend shifted once again in front of him, becoming the shaggy dog so often mistaken for a Grim by that nut job Dumbledore hired. As if anyone was going to try and kill her. It wouldn’t be worth the effort, even if to shut her up.

“And take you to the vet. They’re going to be appalled when I don’t want you neutered.”

Sirius just rolled his eyes, and pushed his nose back into Severus’s hand. Licked his palm as if to say thank you.

“Always.”

*

“You know something funny?”

They were lying on the grass, his hand almost touching hers under the tree, watching the wind sway its branches back and forth, ever so gentle.

Severus turned towards her, her playful green eyes almost sad as she looked at him.

“What?” he finally asked, when she wasn’t forthcoming with an answer.

She looked back at the sky, and her face seemed to sadden, just a fraction. He might have missed it had he looked up at the tree a second earlier.

“Petunia doesn’t like petunias.”

They were silent a moment. And then her hand grasped his.

“I’m not sure I like lilies,” she whispered.

He didn’t know what he was going to do if she started crying. He was no good at this. This was why she had Petunia, only Petunia hadn’t been the nicest as of late. He knew she’d been writing the school, trying to get to go with Lily. Protect her sister. But yesterday she’d been mean—she’d said something mean to Lily. He didn’t know what it was. Lily wouldn’t tell him. She’d said to just leave it alone.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to like lilies. You can like other flowers.”

She thought about it for a moment. Maybe she’d misunderstood what he’d meant, he wasn’t even sure he’d understood what he’d meant. But she didn’t need to like her namesake. It wasn’t all of who she was.

“What’s your favorite flower, Sev?”

“Don’t know.”

Only he did. He did know.

His favorite flowers were lilies.

*

_I want you to know that I know. I know everything. Dumbledore told us before we moved to Godric’s Hollow, told us that you were safe. And I want you to know that James and I never blamed you. Sirius might have a little bit. But you know what he’s like. Remus just stood there silently when he’d told us. But we never blamed you. We knew you had your reasons, knew you needed to stay safe. Even back then, we knew your decision wasn’t just about keeping _you_ safe. We knew you had other motives._

*

“Sirius, you’re still on the run you can’t. Go. To. Hogwarts!” Snape’s voice was punctuated by sharp tugs to Sirius’s midsection as the other man clung to the doorway, wriggling to pry himself out of Severus’s arms.

“He’s there, he’s bloody there let GO of me, Prince!” Sirius had that mad glint in his eyes when he turned to face Severus, and he suddenly had the terrifying image of what his friend would look like after living in Azkaban for years.

He would not fucking let that happen.

One last tug and they both fell to the ground in a heap.

This did not diminish Sirius’s anger.

Twisting in Severus’s grip, Sirius transformed, bit his jaws at Snape’s face, and when Snape let go out of sheer surprise, Sirius made for the door.

Severus sent a quick locking charm at the door, and then lunged at Sirius.

“You _can’t_, Black,” he said, sitting on top of the big shaggy dog. “You can’t go to King’s Cross. You can’t take him away from the muggles.”

The dog glared at him.

Severus sighed.

“Look I know he’s not better off with Tuni and the asshole she married,” he whispered, sitting up a bit. “I know they’re probably not treating him as well as the Headmaster thinks they are. But Sirius I have no legal claim to him, and the ministry is still searching for you. And he’s where the old fool wants him to be. You think you’re going to change that? What will you be able to do from behind the bars of Azkaban?”

Sirius looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

“Yeah. I thought so.”

Sirius transformed back, took in Snape’s defeated shoulders, and put an arm around him. “I’ll leave him alone. For now. But Sev. If he’s _ever_ in danger. You can’t stop me from helping.”

Severus looks at his friend, his curls falling into his eyes from the cut they’d given him just yesterday.

“I know.” He straightened up, and went to go prepare the kettle.

The next time, when Sirius saw the Weasley’s in the newspaper and had zeroed in on the hands of a young boy holding something, Severus had been unable to stop him from leaving.

*

“Oh my god, Sev, are you okay?” Lily’s arms went around him as he entered the Room of Requirement, and for a minute it felt like she was going to choke him before she pulled back, her face going to his cheeks as she turned his head this way and that, looking him over.

“Lily, I’m fine,” he said quietly, knowing that she worried, knowing that she didn’t like the other Slytherins being near enough to him to hex him if they ever found out that he hung out with this lot, even after he’d told them he’d end things with her.

He hated when they called her Mudblood.

James appeared from behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder and pulling her away. “Lils, he’s fine stop smothering him.”

She turned from Severus to glare at the other boy, and Snape began to look around the room. Remus and Sirius were in the corner, Remus looking at him worriedly as Sirius looked at the other two and rolled his eyes. Peter was next to them, looking rat-like as ever. Snape left James and Lily to bicker just as Lily opened her mouth to shriek back at James, making his way over to the other three.

He pulled a vial from his robe pocket and handed it to Remus, whose eyes went wide.

“You did it?” he breathed.

Severus nodded, schooling his features away from the grin he wanted to show. Snape’s did not show emotion.

“Was there ever a doubt?” he drawled.

Sirius gave him a knowing look, not mentioning all the times he’d found Severus in front of yet another failed potion, hunched down and shoulders tense.

_“Sev, it’s a complicated potion. It’s okay if you don’t get it right the first time.”_

_“No, it’s bloody not okay.” He didn’t mention that he’d felt useless, having still not perfected his own transition into his Animagus form enough to go with them on the full moons. This was the only thing he could do and he wasn’t good enough. _

_He’d never be good enough._

Until he was.

“We won’t know if it fully works until after the first full moon,” he said quietly to Remus later.

Remus grinned at him.

“Thanks, Sev. You’re not as horrible as you want everyone to believe, you know.”

Severus looked away, gulping at the sudden knot in his throat.

He was though. He was just as horrible as everyone thought he was.

He looked around at all of them, laughing. Lily was giggling at something James had said, and he’d never seen her so happy. He looked at her like he’d just won the lottery with that laugh. Sirius was wrestling with Peter, even though it was clearly not a fair fight—the rat could never best the dog. And Remus—

\--Remus was looking at Sirius like he’d hung the moon. Severus wondered if he’d ever tell him. Wondered if he should mention it. Probably not.

He wondered if they knew that tomorrow, all of this would change.

After tomorrow, they would never see him again. They wouldn’t want to.They couldn’t.

He needed them to be just like this. Happy. In this room. With each other. Alive.

Grinning and giggling and falling over one another, intertwining.

Always.

*

They could hear Petunia’s feet, thumping after them as Snape grabbed Lily’s arm, pulled her behind the tree. And then Petunia was there, on the other side of Snape, shoving at his arm.

“Where are you?” she wondered out loud, as Severus put his finger up to his lips and Lily let out a silent giggle.

Then Lily poked her head out from behind the tree, and suddenly Petunia was in the air, twisting and wriggling and laughing delightedly.

“Can’t catch us, Tuni!” Lily yelled at her as Petunia slowly started her descent, and Lily and Snape were once again on the run.

“Hey you promised no magic!” she yelled back after them, even as she continued to chase them. Even as she was grinning her gap-toothed smile.

*

“That idiot,” Severus muttered when he saw the front page of the Daily Prophet that morning. A familiar face stared up at him, laughing from the pages.

The pages ruffled when they fell to the table.

He’d been wondering where Sirius had disappeared to, but somehow, he was hoping the man would not be so stupid as to be seen by a public official. And now.

The Headmaster looked at him for a moment, and Severus schooled his expression into a mask even as he put up his shields. He knew it was a good idea as soon as he felt a gentle nudge against his mind.

“I assume this means extra protection for Mister Potter,” Severus sneered.

Dumbledore nodded, his expression mild but to Severus’s eyes the man looked dangerous. To anyone who knew him, indeed, Dumbledore was anything but mild.

“The Minister has decided that dementors will be necessary,” he said, looking Severus in the eye.

_Bloody hell_.

“I called you to my office, however,” he continued, his gaze wandering around the room, though Severus knew where his attentions remained, “not to discuss the mistakes of the ministry, but to instead inform you that an old friend will be joining us this year.”

Snape blinked. “An old friend?”

“I believe you two were quite close,” Dumbledore agreed. “You may come in, Remus.”

Severus turned in shock, just as Remus entered the room.

“Hello, Sev.”

*

_Sev, I won’t ever ask that you talk to her again. I may not know the particulars, but I know things ended. Badly. Just know that. I know you loved her. I know you were never mad at me for choosing James because. Well. It was never a choice. James keeps berating me for not considering your feelings—funny, how that turned out, but I simply think he doesn’t know. And he’ll never know, Sev. I’ll respect your privacy, just as I respected your decision to say goodbye._

*

Severus watched from the shadows in the trees as Harry stepped forward in the dark, toward the lake. He should leave, soon. His duty was to lead Potter here, anything after that was Potter’s role, not his. Still, loyalty to something—perhaps Lily and James—kept him amongst the shadows.

He watched as Potter plunged into the water.

And then didn’t reappear.

(Potter couldn’t _die_ before killing the Dark Lord.)

He held his breath, waiting. And just as he was about to take action and blow his carefully constructed cover, he saw Weasley appear, and dive headfirst into the lake.

He waited until both of them reappeared, the sword in hand.

And then he left.

*

When Severus caught Potter sneaking around with the map, searching out Pettigrew, he had to force down any emotion upon seeing James’ handwriting. It was hard enough to read the words on the page without thinking about who wrote them. He didn’t think about Lily’s letter, tucked in a secret nook in his rooms. He didn’t think about Sirius, still on the run. But he looked down at the handwriting, with the knowledge that the son of his friends thought they were enemies. And he held everything away.

Until he got to his rooms.

When he presented the parchment to Remus, Remus assured him that the spell so he couldn’t use it had been added much later, after he had already joined the Dark Lord. Of course, back then they had not known that he was still on their side.

Not that it would have mattered.

Remus also assured him that Potter would be getting the parchment back at the end of the year. Loath as he was to admit it, Severus knew Potter would need all the support he could get in the upcoming years.

He would need Moony, Padfoot, and Prongs to help him through what was to come next.

(Even though Salazar knew, if he could help prevent what comes next, he would).

(He couldn’t).

*

Her lips were soft upon his, her hands cradling his head where it rested in the grass. His hands were on her back, slowly making their way up her shirt to caress her shoulder blades, brushing against her bra.

She pulled back and smiled at him.

And Merlin, she was beautiful.

Her dark hair fell over her abnormally long neck, and she was beautiful.

Her eyes laughed as they looked down at him, and against the sun she was beautiful.

And he couldn’t understand how they got to this place, but then suddenly. Suddenly it was all gone.

*

Severus looked around the classroom at these children, and he did not see children. He saw future warriors. He saw the child in the corner who shied away from him. Longbottom. He saw how he flinched away from him, saw how he stuttered and put in the wrong ingredients to a potion that will turn deadly if Severus does not remove the contents from the cauldron.

(Ghastly potions work, the boy would kill us all.)

(Or chop off his own finger if he doesn’t learn to use a knife properly.)

He saw an older Longbottom, only a few years older, really. And he watched as he lifted a sword to face a deadly foe, one far more evil than he will ever be. He saw Potter, in the back, and saw too how he would face off against the Dark Lord. He saw Granger, wise beyond her years, screw her face up in front of the cauldron in concentration. He saw her face off against any number of Death Eaters, Weasely by her side. He saw Thomas, battling against the Carrows and Finnigan probably off in the corner blowing something up but hopefully to their advantage and-

They were just children.

How could he possibly ever prepare them for what was to come?

*

He turned to Lily on the grass, and asked if she was finally going to ask James out.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I’m not sure that I should be the one making the first move. I’m always the one making the first move. It’s his turn to do something now.”

Then she glanced at him, and her green eyes danced.

“Sev, what’s your favorite flower?”

He thought about it a moment, before he grinned, and looked at the sky.

“Petunias,” he answered.

*

Severus looked at the letter from Lucius. Written in a scrawl Severus could never hope to match, he read the message Lucius had hidden behind his questions about life at Hogwarts without him there.

The Dark Lord was recruiting.

There were many things Severus could do, he knew this. But as he looked out at the other Slytherins, Pureblooded twits who could never see the danger until they were snared in its grasp, as he thought of his friends, waiting for him in the Room of Requirement. He knew there was really only one choice.

There had only ever been one choice.

*

Potter walked up to the sorting hat. He looked so much like James, that for a second Severus was thrown back in time to his own sorting. To back before he and James and Sirius and Lupin were friends.

He shook himself out of it, tried to pay attention to the sorting.

He would not think about Potter. Or James. He would focus on Quirrell, sitting next to him, and the dreadful thing beneath his turban.

And watching Potter get sorted into Gryffindor.

Just like his father.

It took him a year to figure out he had Lily’s eyes.

*

Remus approached after the children have gone.

“I introduced the children to boggarts,” he tells him. “Do you know what Neville’s is?”

Severus did not answer, already focusing on setting up for the next class.

“It’s you, Severus.”

Severus snorted, shooting Remus a glare.

“And you thought this would be pertinent to me, why?” he drawled at his old friend.

“You terrify him, Severus. Whatever you’re doing-“

“What I’m doing is bracing him. Better to have him terrified of me than terrified of the Dark Lord. He’s coming back, Remus. We both know it, just like we know that it is not we who will have to face him but them. Do you think, when he faces Him, that anything will be able to stand between him and death?” Severus paused, his hands going white knuckled on the desk. “It is better he fear me, now, and learn to overcome that fear, as I suppose he is doing in your class just fine if he was able to defeat the boggart. Better to learn these lessons now, then on the battlefield. You and I, James, Lily, Sirius, we learned these things when war was already upon us. They do not have to. Now get out of my classroom, I have fifth years to teach.”

Remus looked startled, and turned to go.

He left with just this to say:

“There are better ways to teach them, Severus.”

The door closed gently behind him.

*

He thanked Merlin that, when Potter threw himself into Severus’s mind, he did not, in fact, see anything of import.

Even if seeing James like that again broke his heart.

It could have been so.

Much.

Worse.

*

Her lips were soft upon his, her hands cradling his head where it rested in the grass. His hands were on her back, slowly making their way up her shirt to caress her shoulder blades, brushing against her bra.

She pulled back and smiled at him.

And Merlin, she was beautiful.

Her dark hair fell over her abnormally long neck, and she was beautiful.

Her eyes laughed as they looked down at him, and against the sun she was beautiful.

And he couldn’t understand how they got to this place.

He couldn’t understand how he could ever leave.

“Tuni, I’m so sorry,” he whispers, tears already falling down her face. “We can’t do this anymore.”

“What?” Like this is all a joke, it’s not a joke, Tuni _please_. “Sev that’s not funny,” she says.

“There is a war, Tuni. It’s coming I can feel it. And I,” he says, and he has to pause, think of the best way to tell her this. “I cannot be on the right side of it. And Tuni, the world I’m going into, it’s too dangerous. It’s not a place you can be in, not safely. I’m sorry.”

She cups his face. She says, “I’ll come with you anyway, Sev. You and me against the world, until the end. Always.”

And then her smile wobbles, and she pleads, “Don’t leave me behind, Sev. Please don’t leave me behind.”

He grasps her writs, gently gently gently and pulls it away from his face. He sets it in her own lap, away from him. “I cannot bring you with me. The places I need to go, they are not places where you can walk. You do not belong, you don’t have magic to protect yourself, Tuni. I’m sorry.”

He does not tell her that, if he fails, she will not be safe anyway. Instead he pulls his wand out, and he whispers a word, his heart shattering in his chest.

“_Obliviate._”

“I’m so sorry, Tuni,” he whispered. And he let himself cry, for the first time since he was small, and for the last time until the Potters would die in their home.

Petunia Evans would never remember him. She would never remember what happened that day. But she returned home, and when Lily saw her crying, attempted to comfort her, Petunia batted her hands away. A couple months later, she met another muggle named Vernon.

She never remembered that she had once loved a man named Severus Snape. But Snape had intended it that way. He took every good memory of the two of them. He left the magic of Lily, and those couple early years, the years he was terrible. He would never know the true effect he had on Petunia Evans that day.

She never trusted magic again.

And when a baby was dropped on her doorstep, she knew it had taken her sister. It had taken her years ago, when it had whisked her away to Hogwarts. And now it had taken her forever. And she would never love anything. Anything. To do with it again.

*

Potter dragged Draco into the Room of Requirement. Severus paused at the corner of the hallway, intending to use the room for himself. Their faces were already flushed, whispered words that did not echo enough for him to hear but he had imagination enough that he counted himself lucky enough not to overhear.

Severus turned and went back to his potions lab.

At least this solved the problem of how to get his godson away from the Dark Lord.

(He would not be telling Dumbledore about this. Particular. Development).

*

Sirius fell through the veil. He wasn’t there to see it, but he knew it was his fault.

He stumbled, his feet barely catching him as he landed at Spinners End, needing the reprieve from the school, from Potter, from Dumbledore, from everything.

Spinners End just reminded him of Sirius.

All his friends were dying, and there was nothing he could do.

His fist slammed into the door.

Next thing he knew, he was on the floor in the living room, a mostly empty bottle of fire whisky empty next to him, and someone was knocking at the door.

“This is too familiar,” he drawled as he let Remus in.

Remus didn’t get the reference, but that was okay.

Like all those years ago with Sirius, Remus enveloped Severus in a hug.

And they helped each other to grieve.

In the morning, Severus left a hangover potion next to a still sleeping Remus as he got ready for his classes and his return to Hogwarts, with a note telling Remus he could stay as long as he wanted.

Remus didn’t leave for a long, long time.

*

Severus looked at his godson, kneeling before the Dark Lord and he wanted to shake him.

He watched as Draco pulled Potter into yet another dark alcove and Merlin, how did these two not get caught when they were so oblivious to their surroundings, when they did not pay attention to anything but themselves, these were dangerous times and these two idiots-

He watched as Draco got thinner and thinner and he worried.

He watched as, when Dumbledore had fallen and there was no other choice – but Draco was there, hiding children from the Carrows, protecting muggle-born Slytherins, even as he cursed Longbottom and Finnegan in the presence of teachers.

And he knew.

He knew Draco was playing the long game.

And he knew it would be impossible to tell him he was not alone.

*

“Please, please you have to save them,” he choked out, on his knees before the Headmaster.

I never meant for this to happen.

I never meant for any of this to happen.

I only ever wanted them to be safe.

I thought they would be safe.

“And what’ll you give me in return?”

“Anything.”

Just please, please save them.

*

Blood trickled down his chest as Nagini and Voldemort left.

He knew, somehow, that it would come to this.

That he would die alone.

(He’d known since the day he Obliviated Petunia, had pushed Lily and James away, had told Sirius and Remus off and left Peter behind).

He needed to stay alive, to do one last. Impossible task.

He needed to tell Potter.

He needed—

\--and then Potter was there.

Impossibly.

_Thank Merlin_.

“Take. Them.”

His voice failed, he tried again, as the memories dripped out of the corners of his eyes with his tears, and then Potter had a flask and his wand tip was to Severus’s temple and the memories were in the flask and.

His task. Everything was over. Potter would know.

Potter would know everything.

And for a minute, looking at Potter, he realized, not for the first time, that Potter had Lily’s eyes. And for a second, Severus was staring at Lily and James again.

And then darkness.

*

The memory Severus always goes to when casting his Patronus is this:

They’re all of them resting, out in a field where they’ve managed to sneak Petunia. It’s before he took her memories away. It’s before he left this all behind to play the most dangerous game imaginable. And she’s more beautiful than he can ever remember seeing her. She and Lily are wearing sun dresses, and Lily is dancing with James in the dying sunlight as Remus and Sirius chat with Petunia about what she’s been up to in the muggle world and can she get Sirius a motorcycle and teach him how to ride it.

And Severus knows.

Knows this is the last time he’ll get this.

Because there is one thing Severus knows about all his memories. They’re all tinged with bitterness, with sadness, with the knowledge that someone has died or been lost to him.

Soon, he will receive the Dark Mark.

Soon, Petunia forgets him.

Soon, he loses his friends for a very long time, and then some of them he loses forever.

But this moment, as he watches his friends dance around one another so comfortably, as he rests against Remus’s shoulder and holds Petunia’s hand. As she laughs into the dying light. As Sirius grins, a little manically. As Peter sits, somewhat forgotten in the background, listening to the two talk. As James and Lily lean into one another, as they keep this group in their orbit as they continue to spin to the muggle radio that Petunia has brought with her, lost in their own world and yet. Still apart of theirs.

This is the warmest Severus has ever felt.

And even though the sun will set and the cold will descend. The moment itself will forever be his favorite.

It was the last moment of peace he got. For a long time.

*

Severus does not give Harry all the memories.

He does not show Harry long nights laughing outside Spinners End with Petunia.

He does not show him the burning of the Dark Mark, Lucius’s gleeful face as he watched him writhe under the pain of it. How it was a quasi-revenge against his muggle father who was never one to pull his punches. How it was not revenge at all, but a long game drawn out over the course of his life, balancing on the razor’s edge for something that may cost him everything.

He does not show him the long nights he spent devising his plan, thinking of every detail, the Dark Lord a constant fear lurking in the back of his head.

He does not show him the years he spent building up a tolerance, however small, to Veritaserum, building his mental walls so no one, not the Dark Lord, not Bellatrix, not even Dumbledore could break them down.

He does not show him that he knew, all along about his and Draco’s relationship, and that he was proud of his godson and hoped they found all the happiness in the world.

He does not show him the afternoons and quiet Sundays in the Room of Requirement, laughing with Lily, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.

He showed him enough.

*

_Severus, I want you to take care. I know things have been hard. I know that, if you are reading this, things will get even harder. _

_But most of all I want you to know we love you._

_We have always loved you, Severus._

_You are my best friend, and I know James feels the same way, even if he’ll never admit it. I know that might be painful to hear right now, but I cannot let you live in a world where you do not know that you are loved. You are. So much._

_I hope Sirius and Remus find you, but if not, this letter will. And at the very least you will know that we forgave you long ago, and that we knew you’d never fully abandon us. And that you now know we love you, even until the end._

_I hope you find new happiness in this dark world._

_With all my love,_

_Lily_

*

“You’re breeding him, like a pig for the slaughter.”

Dumbledore’s wise, sad eyes, met his, and Severus could not believe the man could be so cold.

“Why Severus, I did not know you cared for the boy,” he remarked dryly.

Severus shook his head, procured his Patronus.

He thought of James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, and all the people who loved this boy. He thought of those dead, of James and Lily who sacrificed their lives for him.

He thought of Petunia.

And from his wand came the doe.

“Lily,” Dumbledore breathed. “After all this time?”

(James running towards them after catching the snitch, throwing an arm around Lily as she whooped for joy. Sirius riding his motorcycle for the first time. Lily creating the perfect little paper crane and sending it over to his desk, giggling quietly as he reads that she’s just asked James out—and he’s said yes—her eyes sparkling the entire time. Remus, having just woken up after his first full moon with his friends, and grinning at Severus that not only could he spend it with the other three, but Severus had made it all so much easier.

Petunia, chasing him and Lily in a game of magical tag. Petunia teaching him how to ride a bike. Petunia writing letter after letter to Hogwarts, having finally figured out how to properly use the owl system.

Petunia leaning over him as her hair tickled his face and she grinned down at him so beautiful, her lips meeting his.)

“Always.”


End file.
